Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ *Text: /2 Peter 1:1// through 2 Peter 1:11 (NASB)/*

*/ /*

*/                The divine nature within can keep us on the path of victory until we get to our eternal home./*

*/ /*

 

*I.

Christian Victory is Granted by the Promise of Salvation*

*/ /*1Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.4For

by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of /the/ divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

*A.      **Everything pertaining to life*

***Thinking of the fullness and duration of this wonderful life, W. B. Hinson, a great preacher of a past generation, spoke from his own experience just before he died.

He said, "I remember a year ago when a doctor told me, 'You have an illness from which you won't recover.'

I walked out to where I live 5 miles from Portland, Oregon, and I looked across at that mountain that I love.

I looked at the river in which I rejoice, and I looked at the stately trees that are always God's own poetry to my soul.

Then in the evening I looked up into the great sky where God was lighting His lamps, and I said, ' I may not see you many more times, but Mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone; and River, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea; and Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great downpulling of the material universe!' "

 

*B.

**Everything pertaining to godliness*

***  "Putting on Christ" ... is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class.

It is the whole of Christianity.

-- C.S. Lewis, Christian Reader, Vol.

33, no.

2.

 

***   The real accent in the New Testament is not on how human I am, but on how Christian I can be.

-- Paul Rees, Leadership, Vol. 3, no.

1.

 

***  For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the king.

-- G.K. Chesterton in Charles Dickens, quoted in As I Was Saying.

Christianity Today, Vol.

33, no.

2.

 

*C.

**Escape from corruption*

***In his book I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church's integrity problem is in the misconception "that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin.

It is a change in belief without a change in behavior."

He goes on to say, "It is revival without reformation, without repentance."

--quoted in John The Baptizer, Bible Study Guide by C. Swindoll, p. 16

 

***I wish there were some wonderful place

called the Land of Beginning Again,

Where all of our past mistakes and heartaches,

And all of our poor selfish grief,

Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door

And never be put on again.

--Louisa Tarkington quoted in Putting Your Past Behind

You, E. Lutzer, Here's Life, 1990, p.13

 

*D.

**A Promise*

***Our Daily Bread, January 1, 1985

You can't break God's promises by leaning on them!

 

 

*II.

Christian Victory is Given by the Practice of Cooperation*

5Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in /your/ moral excellence, knowledge, 6and in /your/ knowledge, self-control, and in /your/ self-control, perseverance, and in /your/ perseverance, godliness, 7and in /your/ godliness, brotherly kindness, and in /your/ brotherly kindness, love.

*A.

**A diligent application (synergism)*

*---*It is not easy.

It takes diligence.

We have to keep at it day by day.

***A gray-haired old lady, long a member of her community and church, shook hands with the minister after the service one Sunday morning.

"That was a wonderful sermon," she told him, "-- just wonderful.

Everything you said applies to someone I know."

Bits and Pieces, November, 1989, p. 19

 

*B.

**A cooperative effort*

A choral symphony (The Greek word for "add" or "supply") The word *add,* in the imperative, translates /epichoreôgeôsate/, from which come the English words “chorus,” “choreograph,” and “choreography.”

In ancient Greece the state established a chorus but the director, the /choreôgys/, \\ paid the expenses for training the chorus.

Then the word came to be used of one \\ who provides for or supports others or supplies something for them in abundance.

\\ A believer is to “furnish, supply, or support” his life with these virtues.

***Many years ago an accomplished organist was giving a concert.

(In those days someone had to pump large bellows backstage to

provide air for the pipes.)

After each selection, the musician

received the thunderous applause of a delighted audience.

Before his final number, he stood up and said, "I shall now

play," and he announced the title.

Sitting down at the console,

he adjusted his music and checked the stops.

With feet poised

over the pedals and hands over the keys, he began with a mighty

chord.

But the organ remained silent.

Just then a voice was

heard from backstage, "Say 'We'!"

 

***   Many years ago when the children were small, we went for a little drive in the lovely English countryside, and there was some fresh snow.

I saw a lovely field with not a single blemish on the virgin snow.

I stopped the car, and I vaulted over the gate, and I ran around in a great big circle striding as wide as I could.

Then I came back to the kids, and I said, "Now, children, I want you to follow in my footsteps.

So I want you to run around that circle in the snow, and I want you to put your feet where your father put his feet."

Well, David tried and couldn't quite make it.

Judy, our overachiever, was certain she would make it; she couldn't make it.

Pete, the little kid, took a great run at it, put his foot in my first footprint and then strode out as far as he could and fell on his face.

His mother picked him up as he cried.

She said to me, "What are you trying to do?"

I said, "I'm trying to get a sermon illustration."

I said, "Pete, come here."

I picked up little Peter and put his left foot on my foot, and I put his right foot on my foot.

I said, "Okay, Pete, let's go."

I began to stride one big stride at a time with my hands under his armpits and his feet lightly on mine.

Well, who was doing it?

In a sense, he was doing it because I was doing it.

In a sense there was a commitment of the little boy to the big dad, and some of the properties of the big dad were working through the little boy.

In exactly the same way, in our powerlessness we can't stride as wide as we should.

We don't walk the way we should.

We don't hit the target the way we ought.

It isn't that at every point we are as bad as we could be.

It's just that at no point are we as good as we should be.

Something's got to be done.